An aggressive President Barack Obama accused challenger Mitt Romney of peddling a “sketchy deal” to fix the U.S. economy and playing politics with the deadly terrorist attack in Libya in a Tuesday night debate crackling with energy and emotion just three weeks before the election. Romney pushed back hard, saying the middle class “has been crushed over the last four years” under Obama’s leadership and that 23 million Americans are still struggling to find work. He contended the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya was part of an unraveling of the administration’s foreign policy.

The president was feistier from the outset than in their initial encounter two weeks ago, when he turned in a listless performance that sent shudders through his supporters and helped fuel a rise by Romney in opinion polls nationally and in some battleground states.

When Romney said Tuesday night that he had a five-point plan to create 12 million jobs, Obama said, “Gov. Romney says he’s got a five-point plan. Gov. Romney doesn’t have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules.”

Obama and Romney disagreed, forcefully and repeatedly — about taxes, the bailout of the auto industry, measures to reduce the deficit, energy, pay equity for women and health care, as well as foreign policy across 90 minutes of a town-hall style debate.

Immigration prompted yet another clash, Romney saying Obama had failed to pursue the comprehensive legislation he promised at the dawn of his administration and the president saying Republican obstinacy made a deal impossible.

Romney gave as good as he got.

“You’ll get your chance in a moment. I’m still speaking,” the former Massachusetts governor said at one point while Obama was mid-sentence, drawing a gasp from the audience. He said the president’s policies had failed to jump-start the economy and had cramped energy production.

The open-stage format left the two men free to stroll freely across a red-carpeted stage — and they did.

Their clashes bristled with energy and tension, and the crowd watched raptly as the two sparred while struggling to appear calm and affable before a national television audience.

While most of the debate was focused on policy differences, there was one more-personal moment, when Obama said Romney had investments in China.

“Mr. President, have you looked at your pension?” Romney interrupted.

“You know, I don’t look at my pension. It’s not as big as yours,” shot back Obama to his wealthier rival.

Obama noted Romney’s business background to rebut his opponent’s plans to fix the economy and prevent federal deficits from climbing ever higher.

“Now, Gov. Romney was a very successful investor. If somebody came to you, Governor, with a plan that said, here, I want to spend $7 or $8 trillion, and then we’re going to pay for it, but we can’t tell you until maybe after the election how we’re going to do it, you wouldn’t take such a sketchy deal and neither should you, the American people, because the math doesn’t add up.”

Countered Romney, a few minutes later, “It does add up.”

Under the format agreed to in advance, members of an audience of 82 uncommitted voters posed questions to the president and his challenger.

Nearly all of the queries concerned domestic policy until one raised the subject of the recent death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya in a terrorist attack at an American post in Ben- ghazi. Romney said it took Obama a long time to admit the episode had been a terrorist attack, but Obama said he had said so the day after in an appearance in the Rose Garden outside the White House.

When moderator Candy Crowley of CNN said the president had in fact done so, Obama, prompted, “Say that a little louder, Candy.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken responsibility for the death of Ambassador L. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, but Obama said bluntly, “I’m the president, and I’m always responsible.”

Romney said it was “troubling” that Obama continued with a campaign event in Las Vegas on the day after the attack in Libya, an event the Republican said had “symbolic significance and perhaps even material significance.”

Obama seemed to bristle. He said it was offensive for anyone to allege that he or anyone in his administration had used the incident for political purposes. “That’s not what I do.”

According to the transcript, Obama said on Sept. 12, “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”

Though the questions were from undecided voters inside the hall — in a deeply Democratic state — the audience that mattered most watched on television and was counted in the tens of millions. Crucially important: viewers in the nine battlegrounds where the race is likely to be settled.

The final debate, next Monday in Florida, will be devoted to foreign policy.

Opinion polls made the race a close one, with Obama leading in some national surveys and Romney in others. Despite the Republican’s clear gains in surveys in recent days, the president led in several polls of Wisconsin and Ohio, two key Midwestern battlegrounds where Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are campaigning heavily.

Barring a last-minute shift in the campaign, Obama is on course to win states and the District of Columbia that account for 237 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. The same is true for Romney in states with 191 electoral votes.

Debate topics

Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama both say their tax plans would benefit the middle class and spur job creation, and both are suggesting their opponent’s plan would do the opposite.

Romney says cutting tax rates across the board would spur job growth. He says bringing rates down makes it easy for small businesses to keep more of their capital and hire more workers.

But Obama, who supports raising tax rates on upper incomes, says Romney’s proposed tax cuts and his calls for increased military spending would add trillions to the federal debt.

ENERGY

Obama says he wants U.S. energy policy to look ahead 20 or 30 years and not just look at what lowers the cost right away. The president says he’s all for oil and natural gas, but he says he will not focus on them exclusively at the peril of renewable energy sources that could create thousands of jobs.

Romney says Obama has fought new energy exploration on federal lands and that Americans have thus faced higher energy costs.

WOMEN’S ISSUES

Responding to a question about pay equity for women, Obama notes that the first piece of legislation he signed made it easier for women to seek the same pay as men for doing the same work.

Romney says that when he was governor of Massachusetts, his administration had women in senior leadership positions. He says many women have suffered job losses and moved into poverty during Obama’s tenure and that creating more jobs would help women.

LIBYA

Obama says the responsibility for what happened at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, falls to him and to no one else. Republican rival Mitt Romney says the president’s team either didn’t know all the details — or didn’t tell the truth — about the death of four Americans there immediately after the attacks.

Obama says he wants to find out exactly what made possible those four deaths and calls Romney’s response offensive and designed to score political points.

A voter asked Romney how he was different from fellow Republican George W Bush. Romney says that he would govern under different conditions that would allow him to make North America energy independent from Arab and Venezuelan oil. He also says he would crack down on China’s currency manipulation and cut the deficit by increasing trade.

Obama says Romney, unlike Bush, would cut funding to Planned Parenthood and that Romney would pursue a more stringent immigration policy than Bush did.

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